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I've just completed a three day workshop at
Cowslip Workshops with textile artist
Cas Holmes whose background is in fine art, and am positive spoke a different language to me... a specialist "Art" language!
The first day was surface decoration onto both paper and fabric using acrylic paint. Cas uses very basic materials and isn't lured by the latest greatest new product, which is really refreshing.
Printing was with a rubber stamp we'd carved during our first exersise and making marks with whatever else we could find around us. We needed to amass a collection of fabrics/papers of differing weights and textures with which to work from on days 2 and 3.
An integral part of the course was recording everything in our mandatory sketchbooks, therefore building up a resource bank of ideas and information either to use or discard! Hard habit to get into but definately proved to be successful.
Day two...using the work completed on day one, plus "sunprinting" that we managed to do as the weather permitted, we began to put together a collage, adding other ephemera, found objects or fabrics as desired to create a "piece of work". Again the sketchbook recording figured heavily.
Day three was bliss, handstitching outside in glorious sunshine, can't think of anything better!
Although I felt out of my depth some of the time it was a worthwhile experience and have lots of areas for continued development.